The all new buyers/sellers waiting room (x 6!) thread

[Champere]

Welcome across everyone!

We’ve got six nights until we move and the insomnia has set in!

It’s taken us three threads to move and I hope this thread is the one I graduate on….

Best of luck to everyone! May your agents be truthful, your conveyancers responsive, your lenders generous and your chain reasonable!!

Hi all, long time lurker first time posting.

It's been a long and difficult journey to get where we are, with our buyer pulling out days before exchange a few months ago. Thankfully we found another buyer not long after and managed to secure the house we were buying before.

We are due to exchange this week and yet things just keep going wrong. The boiler at the house we're buying is knackered so we've asked for a reduction.
Our vendor isn't the easiest to deal with and has gone completely silent, despite chasing the agents every day for weeks prior to this trying to get the sale over the line. We are hoping to hear back tomorrow but the sellers estate agent said she will likely pull the plug over this.

The house is empty and has been for 6 months since the tenants moved out, the boiler is 10 years old and leaking and rusty, so isn't economical to fix and warrants a new boiler.
To add, we are a young family with a toddler so no heating or hot water is not an option.
We have been the only ones to put an offer in since it came on the market at the beginning of April, so can't see her pulling out, think she'd be a bit silly to do that to be honest at this point.

Despite all of this we have spent the weekend packing, but I'm now panicking, moving to a new area albeit not too far away but finding this all so daunting and stressful. Please tell me it's normal to get cold feet at this stage 🙈

I think it is normal to panic at this stage. I'm starting to panic and we aren't even buying - just selling as there's nothing decent to buy so going into rented.

If the boiler was 10 years old when you made the offer, I wonder if the vendor thinks that should've been taken into account when you offered? Also, do you think you'd still move forwards if they say no?

Hiya thanks for new thread! We have had a weekend of packing and tip runs...but we also had a whole week last week of no responses to enquiries to our seller which is extremely frustrating. It's been 2 weeks now since they were submitted. After week 1 we had a response to a couple with others still awaited. And now it's been a second week. Today my solicitor will chase but it's holding everything else up. I really really want to be in by Christmas 😞

Do you think it's reasonable to expect a response from our buyer's solicitor about what their cryptic comment re building regulations (and the suggestion our flat doesn't comply) in the next couple of days? She wants to exchange by Christmas which allowing for the fact most solicitors will finish on 20th, is 4 weeks away.

We are now having to look at things like storage and will spend Christmas moving things into it but the short notice and uncertainty around the weird last minute enquiries is preventing us from committing to anything.

@kirinm that's good to hear!

We actually didn't know, our vendor refused to get it checked so we organised for it to be done and then found out 😫

Second thread but I only joined the tail of the last one.

We have appointed solicitors, someone to do our survey and applied for the mortgage proper.

Fingers crossed everything goes quickly. Apparently our sellers are now keen to proceed quickly. It's unlikely but we are very hopeful to get keys before Christmas, so that we can spend some of the holiday doing some decorating and move in soon after.

Exciting times here, Mortgage valuation booked for today, survey for Friday.

Scanning past threads for super quick sales! Can we do 5 weeks! I doubt it, but can dream!

I really hope everyone on this thread gets some traction this week! Spoke the the estate agent and our buyer has been asking about dates, but it is their solicitor that keeps going over the same point on the enquiries. Everything else is in place. So just want to exchange and secure a date to move now.

I don't want to dampen anyone's expectations but just to say that (as a solicitor myself) I would expect the majority of firms to stop working by 20th. At best the 23rd.

I think this is what's happening with us. The buyer possibly hasn't got a clue about what we are being asked (and what we keep repeating).

I'm very much on the not excited side of things because moving to rented takes the fun out of anything particularly when our rent will be about 5 times our mortgage!

I thought this might be the case! We shall hope for as much progress as possible. But solicitor has said to us three weeks for searches. That's 16th before looking at any queries they throw up. New year, new house!

Having a stressful week and it’s only Monday! Buyers came back towards the end of last week wanting us to pay towards extending the lease- we explained we’d factored this cost into the asking price (which their offer was already below) but we’ve offered to contribute a lump sum towards the fees etc incurred for the extension, which they’ve accepted, but we’re worried now that we’ve set a precedent and there will just be more demands that we won’t be able to meet.

I’m genuinely worried about what this is doing to DH’s mental health. We really need to move and we love the house we’re buying so much- if this one falls through (this is our third buyer since we went on the market in July last year) and he’s started having panic attacks at night. It just all feels so precarious.

May I join?
Live very rurally where the market is all retirees and holiday homes. No-one interested in our huuuuge 5 bed (that's on for under 200k and in good nick.) We've just seen somewhere we love and I am obsessed with it- but can't offer without a buyer. Houses like mine can be for sale for ages in this area because not many people live here. Think extremely isolated.
Wondering about reducing price by 10k in order to try and get interest and then hopefully secure the dream house, but everyone around me is saying that it's very very cheap for what it is. I've had that feedback from viewings too... Very good value, but garden too small / house too big.

@WhatTheKey what's the rental market like? Could you rent yours until you can sell in order to get enough income for a mortgage on your new one?

Our buyer's surveyor's comments on whether our flat complies with Building Regulations has really bloody annoyed me. It winds me up just to think about it!

We've had an email from our sol today saying the buyer's sol will be discussing with their surveyor and buyer but in the same email saying they want to exchange before Christmas.

I want to know what is actually happening by the end of this week. I don't want this crap ruining Christmas.

@kirinm I think I am in similar position to you (sure we said this on the last thread): - so we want to exchange by Christmas, we had our buyers' survey together and he had a drone! Anyway, they'll end up knowing more about our house than we do after 30+ years, and apparently (ex-h was present not me) the surveyor was making "dear oh dear" type noises. Now we wait.

@eaglebeagle24 would you be wiling to name the nearest town or district for the leasehold you pulled out of, I think I rent one on the same estate! Or maybe there are a lot of leaseholders whatsapps bemoaning management companies and damp etc :(

Father in law (85) has packers in tomorrow, move out into storage on Wednesday and completes on Friday - he's staying in a local hotel for Tuesday till Saturday morning when he drives over to us as he refuses not to leave the area till he hands keys in and it completes - a bit nuts - but hey ho !! I'm expecting his purchase to exchange just before Xmas

I've got hassle from both sides and a solicitor who isn't calling me back. What joy.

Doesn't like we'll be moving by Christmas 😭 was meant to be start of November and it's still delayed now. Our life is packed away in boxes

Ah I wondered where this thread went. I think I may have missed some completions!

I'm exchanging imminently! Waiting waiting waiting with baited breath tomorrow. Solicitor confirmed "we can secure exchange this week for you" and 5th December is completion day! I am positively giddy.

Fingers crossed for everyone else also waiting for exchange news!

I was supposed in the space of two weeks I've gone from moving this week to probably losing my buyer.

Rent would cover the mortgage, but I'd have to pay second home stamp duty and lots more council tax. I agree that second homes should pay inflated tax- second homes have decimated my community- but I wish there was a way of buying that didn't feel like getting your heart broken!

Still here, still not moved in!
Should be exchanging this week and a provisional completion of the 11th December. It's taken since May to get to this point 🙃

Still not moved in. We were supposed to be in by October. Now have a huge Land Registry issue as the retaining wall is in the wrong place. I'm imagining we won't be in now until after Christmas.

Fingers crossed you complete soon! We are prepared to wait as chain free but difficult not knowing when! Last I heard was 16 weeks minimum